Yogi to address BJP rally in Bengaluru on Sunday

Bengaluru: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would address a BJP rally here on Sunday in view of the upcoming assembly election in Karnataka, a party official said on Saturday.

“Adityanath arrived on Saturday night to participate in our party’s rally and address the public on Sunday afternoon,” a party spokesman told IANS.

It is second time Adityanath is participating in the party’s rally in the state after he did on December 21 at Hubballi in north Karnataka.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) state unit has embarked on a 90-day statewide rally on November 2 from Bengaluru in the run-up to the assembly poll, due by April, under the banner of “Nava Karnataka Nirmana Parivarthana Yatra”, flagged off by party chief Amit Shah.

The party is expecting about 50,000 people to gather at the Vijayanagar public grounds for the rally.

The BJP, which came to power in the state for the first time on its own after the 2008 assembly election, lost to the Congress in the 2013 assembly poll following a split in its state unit and five years of “misrule” with three Chief Ministers at the helm of office.

Besides party’s state unit President B.S. Yeddyrappa, central ministers from the state Ananth Kumar and D.V. Sadananda Gowda and state unit leaders Jagadish Shettar, K.S Eshwarappa and A.R. Ashok will address the gathering.

“Adityanath will also will visit the Adichunchanagiri Mutt to meet its seer Nirmalanandanath Swami and have lunch with him after the yatra event,” said the party leader.

The popular mutt of the powerful Vokkaliga community has been associated for long with the Gorakhnath Mutt in Uttar Pradesh’ Gorkahpur where Adityanath was head priest.